No one would seem to have been better positioned to know what Sandusky was doing than his wife of 45 years, Dorothy “Dottie” Sandusky.

Dottie insists that her 67-year-old husband is innocent of all charges of having sexually assaulted boys as young as 7 years old.

“I continue to believe in Jerry’s innocence and all the good things he has done,” she said in a Dec. 8 public statement. “I am asking everyone to please be reasonable and open-minded until both sides of this case are heard, and Jerry has the opportunity to prove his innocence.”

But Dottie Sandusky has been under increased scrutiny herself. Several of the boys told a grand jury that they spent days and nights at the Sandusky home, went along on family vacations and were fixtures in the family’s life.

Another alleged victim said that Dottie, Jerry and a family friend called him with something “important” after he talked to police, according to the grand jury report. Yet another pair of boys said to the attorneys representing them that they were invited to the family home for a “reunion” after the investigation was under way.

Critics ask: How could Dottie Sandusky not harbor any suspicions about her husband’s close relationships with a series of preteen boys going back at least as far as 1994 and stretching until 2008?

But those who know the family, as well as experts, say it might not be that far-fetched.

Jeff Byers grew up near the Sandusky home before the Sanduskys moved to their current address on Grandview Road. A local radio host in State College, Byers was close to the five adopted Sandusky children growing up. He still keeps in touch with the family.

With a husband in the spotlight, Dottie was content behind the scenes, he said.

“Jerry was just on the road so much with recruiting, and obviously during the season he wasn’t home much,” Byers said. “The typical coach’s story. She had a ton of responsibility — basically being the one that was raising the five kids and trying to keep everything in order.”

Sandusky met Dottie Gross at a picnic in his hometown of Washington, Pa., right before his senior year of college, according to his autobiography, “Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story.” “I was always very shy and backward; never one to be aggressive socially,” he wrote. “Even though I spent time talking with Dottie a couple of times, I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask her out on a real date.”

Instead, his mother did it for him.

They bonded over a love of children, he wrote, and after they married, decided to adopt children because they couldn’t have any of their own. They planned to adopted five. The sixth — Matt Sandusky — was a Second Mile child adopted as an adult in the 1990s.

“It was a very, almost Rockwellian type of family, and her role was the organizer and the one that kept everything of track with the family,” Byers said.

Sandusky himself provides a crucial glimpse into their relationship in his book.

“Dottie has always been there to look after (the children) when I was away, and usually from the minute I was back in town, I became another big kid for her to supervise as well,” he wrote.

Dottie, he wrote, regularly oversaw household activities. In one case, early in their marriage, she had to take over changing a bathroom light bulb after Jerry failed in the task.

“There’s obviously people wondering what (the family) knew, and from everything I’m gathering ... she was not aware of what went on in the house," Byers said. “I would find it very hard to believe that she knew anything or suspected anything, just because I think she is very moral and religious person.

“From my dealings with her, she isn’t afraid to say if she sees something being done incorrectly or something she feels isn’t right.”

But Byers remembers Dottie expressing a concern at one point, long before the grand jury investigation.

“She did talk to Jerry. She had concerns just that — I think she was concerned that people could perceive things the wrong way,” he said. “Not child rape, that’s a whole different category. But I think she generally had some concern that someone could falsely accuse him. He had problems with the boundary issue.”

In her only public statement about Jerry’s arrest, Dottie Sandusky defended the way that Second Mile kids became like part of their family. The Second Mile is a children's charity Jerry Sandusky founded in the late 1970s.

“No child who ever visited our home was ever forced to stay in our basement and fed there,” she wrote. “All the kids who visited us ate with us and our kids and other guests when they were at our home. Our children, our extended family and friends know how much Jerry and I love kids and have always tried to help and care for them. We would never do anything to hurt them.”

Dottie vehemently denied that she ever heard or ignored cries for help.

Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola, said Dottie Sandusky doesn’t have an attorney and sees no need for one. The couple is considering speaking together publicly after the new year, Amendola said — either to Oprah Winfrey, to the CBS show “60 Minutes,” to NBC’s “Rock Center” or to ABC’s Barbara Walters.

Those close to the Sanduskys find themselves struggling to reconcile the Jerry they knew as an exemplary family man with the horrendous reports of his alleged crimes. But experts who study the issue say that struggle is not unusual for friends, family or even a spouse.

“Child sexual abuse is so heinous that it’s the last thing you would want to believe is true,” said Tina Phillips, training director for the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance. “So you start to rationalize those things that should be giving you red flags.”

It’s also not always as obvious as an outsider might think, said Maia Christopher, executive director for the Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers. Abusers don’t often abuse in public. And they can manipulate their spouses — expecting them to obey when told not to enter a room or a basement.

In one extreme case, an Austrian man kept his daughter hidden for 24 years in a secret basement and fathered seven children with her. His wife lived innocently upstairs, believing their daughter had been kidnapped. The tragedy was discovered in 2008.

“Sex abuse thrives in silence, and people go out of their way to be sure that other people don’t see the offense,” Christopher said. “If you’re not standing right there and somebody is hiding a behavior, it’s very easy to say that, after 20 years, somebody must have seen something.”

In other cases, wives can become complicit, Phillips said.

Former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine has recently been accused of molestating two former ball boys. One of them taped a conversation with Fine’s wife, Laurie, in which she stated that she knew her husband had abused him.

Laurie Fine told the boy she knew “everything that went on” with her husband and that “he thinks he’s above the law.”

Prominent midstate attorney William Costopoulos has seen spouses kept in the dark about many types of crimes and addiction.

He watched a television interviewer ask Ruth Madoff, wife of Bernie Madoff, about her husband who had been convicted in a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. The interviewer said, “You’re telling the world you did not know that his billions were scam money?” and Ruth Madoff said, ‘I did not.’ “

“I find that credible,” Costopoulos said. “Very often, spouses are in relationships with no clue that their husband may have a darker side.”

And when the news becomes public, the family members around an abuser often need as much help as the victims, Phillips said.

Many of Sandusky’s children sat in the front pews of the Centre County Courthouse on Dec. 13 in support of their 67-year old father at his preliminary hearing. Dottie walked in to the courthouse on her husband’s arm. She didn’t look at cameras.

Once inside, she appeared relaxed, smiling and chatting with family members. But she’s lost weight. Byers has seen her appearance and is concerned.

“I’m concerned about the whole family. Obviously, your heart goes out to the (alleged victims) impacted by this, but I think secondarily and importantly is Dottie and her kids — what they’re going through and having to deal with,” Byers said. “They’re pretty adamant they’ve never seen anything inappropriate. ... Your dad who you’ve always looked up to and respected, and now he’s vilified. And the name they always took pride in is sullied.

Byers said he can relate personally to their shock and disbelief.

“I never saw or heard that anything was ever slightly amiss,” he said. “Part of me wants to believe that Jerry’s still innocent — but I’m also pragmatic.”

Pennsylvania law doesn’t always protect spouses from having to testify against each other, but so far, Dottie doesn’t appear to be a major player in the witness lineup. She could testify about her husband’s character, or she could attempt to refute the allegations that some of the attacks happened under their roof.

“Juries, of course, take into consideration the nature of the relationship and the emotional bond that exists,” Costopoulos said. “That doesn’t make (spouses who testify) liars.”

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